


Albatross

by annabeth_at_the_helm



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 05:37:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16011380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabeth_at_the_helm/pseuds/annabeth_at_the_helm
Summary: Hawkeye never makes it home--at least, not in his own mind. The albatross of Korea lingers.





	Albatross

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen."

Korea lingers on Hawkeye like a bad smell or an albatross around his neck. He came home, but he doesn't think he came home okay. He went away for three years, a short time in any life, but also a lifetime too short for the horrors he saw over there.

And he came back broken. Hawkeye knows it. Hawkeye remembers the institution, Sidney, the bus… the chicken. He remembers it all: the blood, the pain, the red tape and the terrible army regulations on everything.

He also remembers Trapper. It's been sixteen months since he returned from that hell on earth, and he can't work up the courage to write. There has been no word from Trapper, either. Trapper, who left without a goodbye and who didn't write to welcome him back, either.

"Hawkeye?" his father knocks once on the bedroom door. Hawk has been buried in here for months. He never leaves except to go to the bathroom. Somehow in his cobwebbed brain he realizes that his dad is the only reason he ever eats. "I'm coming in."

Hawkeye's hair is too long, and it doesn't stay where he puts it anymore; it hangs lank in his eyes. He blinks behind the black curtain and catches shadows and light as his father moves about the room.

"Listen, Hawk," he says, and the mattress depresses when his father sits on it. Hawk is sitting too, facing the closed up window. "You need to—to work, or to get out of here and into the yard, something. I could use help at the clinic. You could just do the check-ups on the children, nothing complicated, nothing surgical. Hawkeye?"

He says nothing. He can't think about surgery without throwing up or his hands shaking. And underneath the depression that he can't shake is the knowledge that there is probably only one person who can bring him back to life.

Trapper is hundreds of miles away, married with two kids. He doesn't have room in his life for a broken down human being with nothing to offer anyone—Hawkeye is a bruise on the skin of the world, now, useless and hopeless. If he's not a surgeon, he's not anything.

"I wish you would say something," Daniel says. "I only want to help you."

But Hawkeye can't form words. How long has it been since he's spoken? How long has it been since he's opened his mouth for something other than food, or slept without screaming?

Something shattered inside when Trapper left, and BJ, while an imperfect replacement, filled in the empty spaces for two years. He was in that tent, and even Charles… it kept him present. Now there is nothing, and he's anchorless, rudderless.

Daniel sets down the tray of food—lunch, or dinner? Or maybe even breakfast. Hawkeye has no idea. His ready quips, his best defense mechanism, are all gone. There's nothing left inside of him; he gave it all to Korea.

The door shuts. Hawkeye closes his eyes and lies back. Maybe when he feels stronger, strong enough to lift the flatware, he'll eat.

++

"Just write something," Daniel says. It could be days or weeks later. It could be only hours. Hawkeye breathes through the cracked ache in his chest and tries to remember something besides blood and guts and pain. "It doesn't matter to who. Write Sidney. For me, Hawk, please. I'm not getting any younger and I won't watch you die first."

He gets up. The tray on the bed has a clean white sheet of paper on it. Hawkeye blinks and it's spattered with blood; the sheets need to be changed, the lap sponges thrown out. He can't—he can't.

The paper is gone when he opens his eyes again. But there's something clutched in his fist, and it's not the bloody sheet his father left behind, but an envelope.

_Hawkeye—_

_Your father wrote to me. He said he found my address in your still-packed footlocker. He said it was the only address hidden in a sock, and he wouldn't have found it if not for taking things out to wash them._

_I thought we needed a clean break, Hawk. I waited as long as I could, you know? But your dad says you don't speak or shower or go outside. He said you barely eat. I'm not Sidney, but I just…_

_I can't write what I want to say in a letter. You have to pick, Hawk. If you get up and shower, if you can bring yourself to eat a little bit more, I'll come to see you. Maybe you will be able to find your voice again._

_I don't know if I'm too late. I hope not. Try, Hawk. For me?_

_—Trapper_

Trapper. After all this time, he writes. Hawkeye scrunches the letter back up and lets it fall to the floor. That relationship ended, didn't it? It was over years ago.

He rolls toward the wall, eyes closed as tightly as the crumpled paper.

Maybe once, it would have meant something, but now it means nothing.

++

"Hawkeye!" His father sounds urgent, almost panicked. "You need to take a shower. Come on." Hawk doesn't remember the last time he felt clean. Everything is so vague—he thinks maybe his father has been helping him wash up while he lies in bed. But he forces atrophying muscles to move, to sit up. There must be wounded. He must—what does he have to do?

He has to scrub. And he feels filthy; much too dirty to perform surgery on anyone. He stumbles to the bathroom. The water is cold. He doesn't even know why.

But something breaks, like a rubber band snapping and color floods in. Hawkeye is standing in front of the bathroom mirror, wearing red. It's too red. Where is he bleeding?

"Hawkeye, I'm coming in—"

The door opens. Blue eyes, vague and unfocused, blink at him in the mirror.

"Hawk?"

The lights are too bright and the voice is too familiar. He feels mortally wounded, in shock and broken.

"Hawkeye?" Strong arms, muscular arms he remembers _too well_ , are catching him, holding him upright. The voice is frightened, and the hazel eyes he sees when he opens his own make tears well up. How many dreams did he have where that plane went down? Where Trapper never said goodbye and never could? How many kids on the operating table had he seen that face, that head of curly hair on?

"Trap," he croaks. He can hear his father gasp.

"What—?"

"We need to be alone," Trapper says, and Hawk is hustled into the empty bedroom next to the bathroom. Somewhere, distantly, he's grateful; what must his own room look like?

"Trapper." It's the only thing he can think of to say, the only word fluttering around his brain like a trapped bird.

There is a mouth on his. He doesn't try to press the issue, but warm soft lips are covering Hawkeye's. Something stretches and wakes up, like he's finally aware of himself again.

"Trapper?" he asks against that beautiful mouth. God, how he used to love that mouth.

"What happened?" Trapper asks, but his strong, strong arms keep him grounded in a tight embrace. The kiss was scandalous and risky, and Hawkeye doesn't even remember why he should care.

"I—got lost on the way home. I never made it home, Trap," he replies. Trapper kisses him again. Suddenly Hawkeye tries to remember the last time he brushed his teeth. He turns his face away. Trapper lets him duck out of the kiss, but he doesn't let him go from his arms. Those biceps feel like steel against his own weak arms.

"You are home," Trapper says. "You came back from Korea two years ago, Hawk. Fuck. I missed you so much."

The tears against his neck when Trapper buries his face there break something inside Hawkeye. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say it breaks _through_ , and pieces Hawkeye back together.

"No," he says, completely honest, mind suddenly clear. "I wasn't home until you came, Trap."

"Come back with me to Boston," Trapper says. "I can find you a job at a hospital or clinic, and an apartment where we can be alone. I can't leave my daughters, Hawk, but I can't leave you, either."

It's too simple. It will never work.

But Hawkeye has no other choice. If Trap leaves again, Hawkeye will perish. It's so simple.

"I want to brush my teeth," Hawkeye says. Trapper gazes into his eyes, the hazel wet. But he smiles, that crooked prankster's smile.

It says without words that everything is going to be all right. That Hawkeye will be okay.

That they will be together in any way they can manage it.

"Go," Trap says. Hawk gets unsteadily to his feet. He turns back to look at Trapper one more time before he moves towards the bathroom and toothpaste.

"Yes," he says. "I will."

No marriage vow will ever be more binding than those two words—and they both know it.

END.


End file.
